Parents and Children

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  James at once rose, selected some biscuits and a book and arranged a table and the sofa for the reception of them and himself. He did not look at Miss Mitford nor she at him. Hatton’s word was law in the schoolroom, as Miss Mitford chose to accept it as such, pursuing with it the opposite course to that she took with other people’s.

  ‘Miss Isabel, look at your hair,’ said Mullet, as if the vigour of the enjoinder rendered it possible.

  ‘Hatton said I was not to touch it myself, because I tear at it.’

  ‘Then you should come upstairs to have it done. I wonder the mistress did not notice it.’

  ‘How do you know she did not?’ said Miss Mitford.

  ‘She would have sent her up to have it done,’ said Venice, who managed her own with care and competence.

  ‘Perhaps that is why it is shorter than Venice’s, because you pull it,’ said James, turning a serious eye from the sofa.

  ‘You pull it often enough yourself,’ said Isabel.

  ‘I never pull any out,’ said James, in defence of his own course, returning to his book.

  ‘Why should we go down to dessert twice a day?’ said Venice.

  ‘Just to make the household as odd as possible,’ said Isabel.

  ‘You get twice as much dessert,’ said Miss Mitford.

  ‘Will you have tea or coffee after your dinner, ma’am?’ said Mullet.

  ‘I think coffee is more sustaining, as I don’t have dessert.’

  Mullet laughed, and the children did so with more abandonment, taking the chance of venting their mirth over Miss Mit-ford’s practice of broaching private stores while they were downstairs. It merely made her meal correspond with theirs, but they thought it a habit of a certain grossness and never alluded to it to her face.

  ‘Shall I tell Cook to send up the things you like?’ said Mullet.

  ‘It might be suspected that we had asked,’ said Isabel.

  James raised his eyes in survey of the situation.

  ‘The little ones are going down before their dinner, so you won’t have them,’ said Mullet, in encouraging sympathy with intolerance of the creatures to whom her own life was given. ‘The nursery dinner is late. And now I must take my tray.’

  ‘I will go up to Hatton about my hair,’ said Isabel.

  ‘Don’t put off your lessons longer than you must,’ said Miss Mitford, in a tone of rejoinder.

  ‘There is only one book,’ said Isabel, implying a sacrifice of opportunity to her sister.

  ‘Why don’t they do different lessons at the same time?’ said James, without moving his eyes.

  ‘We might find it a strain,’ said Miss Mitford.

  Mullet went to fetch the children from the garden, and Eleanor met her coming up the stairs, with the three of them clinging to her.

  ‘Dear, dear, can’t any of you walk alone? Mullet will need to have several pairs of arms and legs.’

  ‘Mullet help him,’ said Nevill, with a note of defiance.

  ‘She seems to be helping the others too. I think you must all have a rest this morning,’

  ‘Hatton sit on his little bed,’ said Nevill, as he entered the nursery.

  ‘I have not time this morning. Mullet will stay with you for a while.’

  ‘Mother likes us to be alone while we go to sleep,’ said Gavin.

  ‘Her standard is too high for Nevill,’ said Hatton. ‘And I notice it sometimes is for you.’

  Honor broke into mirth.

  ‘Don’t you mind what she says?’ said Gavin, with a note of respect.

  ‘Hatton doesn’t mind,’ said Nevill, with tenderness and pride.

  ‘The mistress said they were all to rest,’ said Mullet.

  ‘Well, that is not beyond us,’ said Hatton. ‘And there need be no delay.’

  Presently Gavin awoke with a cry, and Eleanor came to his bedside. She found him sitting up, in the act of receiving a glass of water from Hatton, his demeanour accepting his situation as serious, and this view of it in others.

  ‘What is it, my boy?’

  ‘I want Honor to wake.’

  ‘Did you have a dream?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell Mother what it is.’

  ‘It is nothing.’

  ‘Is it burglars?’ said Honor, suddenly sitting up straight.

  ‘No, Gavin has had a dream and wants to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Gavin, turning away his head.

  ‘What is it?’ said his sister, in a rough tone that cleared his face.

  ‘It was a sort of a dream.’

  ‘Were you afraid?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will you tell me after dinner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was kind of Honor to wake,’ said Eleanor.

  Gavin did not reply.

  ‘Don’t you think it was?’

  ‘She thought it was burglars,’ said Gavin, and turned on his side.

  ‘What is wrong with them, Hatton?’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Only the journey, madam. They will be themselves tomorrow.’

  ‘I wonder the human race has been so fond of migrations, when the young take so hardly to travelling,’ said Eleanor, with her occasional dryness.

  Mullet fell into laughter and hastily left the room, as though feeling it familiar to meet an employer’s jest with the equal response of mirth. Honor looked at her mother and laughed in her turn, and Gavin surveyed them with a frown.

  Chapter 3

  Eleanor went downstairs to the dining-room, where her husband, his parents and his three eldest children were assembled for luncheon.

  ‘Hatton continues to manage the little ones in her own way. I suppose it would do no good to interfere.’

  ‘What is wrong with the method?’ said Fulbert, seeming to gather himself together for judgement.

  ‘A good many things that only a mother would see.’

  ‘Then we cannot expect Hatton to be aware of them.’

  ‘Nor the rest of us, Mother dear,’ said Luce. ‘You must not look for sympathy. I am always thankful that I had the same nurse when I was young. It takes any anxiety for the children simply off me.’

  ‘Hatton will rule the house in the end,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘A good many of you seem to be doing that,’ said Sir Jesse. ‘But if too many cooks spoil the broth, the right number make it very good.’

  ‘It is a real achievement, the way you all work together,’ said Fulbert. ‘I mean to pay you a serious compliment.’

  ‘You talk as if you were a creature apart,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Yes, you do, Father,’ said Luce.

  ‘Have you two lads forgotten your tongues?’ said Fulbert.

  ‘I had a hope of it,’ said Sir Jesse.

  ‘I don’t think I forbade you to speak, Graham,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Did you change your room, Luce, my dear?’ said Regan.

  ‘Yes, I am having Graham’s, Grandma.’

  ‘What is this about changing rooms?’ said Eleanor. ‘It is the first I have heard of it.’

  ‘Luce wants more light,’ said Daniel. ‘So we are arranging for Graham to do without it.’

  ‘Well, what use is it to him?’ said Sir Jesse, who resented any aspersion on his house. ‘To look at himself in the glass? He can give way to his sister there.’

  ‘I was the natural person to consult,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Well, Mother dear, Grandma seemed just as much so,’ said Luce. ‘Perhaps more, as the house is hers.’

  Eleanor was silent, submitting to the place she had accepted, and Regan gave her an almost sympathetic glance.

  ‘The children are on the stairs,’ said Daniel. ‘They will have their dessert at an odd time today.’

  ‘They had better dispense with it,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘That is seldom a happy solution,’ said Fulbert. ‘Things in the wrong order won’t hurt them for once.’

  Nevill ran into the room in the manner of a horse, lifting his feet and head
in recognizable imitation.

  ‘So you are a horse today,’ said his mother.

  ‘A charger, a little charger.’

  ‘Chargers are big,’ said Gavin.

  ‘No,’ said Nevill, shaking his head in a manner at once equine and negative; ‘a little charger.’

  ‘A pony,’ suggested Daniel.

  ‘A pony,’ agreed Nevill.

  ‘Ponies are always small,’ said Regan.

  ‘Always small,’ said Nevill, on a contented note.

  ‘Do you want me to go on with the tale?’ said Luce.

  Nevill trotted to her side and stood with his hand on her knee, and his eyes on her face.

  ‘I don’t remember if I like it,’ said Gavin.

  ‘It is Nevill’s tale,’ said Honor.

  ‘But you can all listen,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘His tale,’ said Nevill, throwing them a look.

  ‘Can you tell me where we left off?’ said Luce.

  ‘No,’ said Nevill, rapidly moving his feet. ‘Don’t let Gavin tell you. Luce tell Nevill.’

  ‘Don’t you remember yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And it is your tale,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘He doesn’t remember,’ said Nevill, striking Luce’s knee.

  ‘Read us a piece out of the book,’ said Gavin.

  ‘Well, get it and find the place,’ said Luce. ‘We have only a few minutes.’

  Honor obeyed with speed and success, and Gavin waited while she did so, and joined her to listen.

  ‘Why do you leave it all to Honor?’ said Eleanor, who was not happy in the child whom she singled out for achievement.

  Gavin kept his eyes on his sister’s face. Nevill turned away and resumed his imitation of a pony, trying to distinguish the movements from those of a horse.

  ‘Well, is no one coming to talk to me?’ said Eleanor. ‘Why did you all come down?’

  Gavin did not allow his attention to be diverted, and Luce read on, as if she would not undertake a thing and not accomplish it.

  ‘I must ring for Hatton to fetch you, if you haven’t any reason for being here. Luce can read to you upstairs.’

  ‘She never does,’ said Gavin, in a parenthetic tone.

  ‘We can’t have your mother left out in the cold.’

  Nevill paused in his prancing and glanced at Eleanor; Sir Jesse and Regan remained aloof, claiming no part in the separate family life; Fulbert beckoned to Honor and lifted her to his knee; Gavin did not move his eyes and frowned at the interruptions.

  ‘Now we don’t want any fallen faces,’ said Eleanor, putting her arm round Nevill, and looking for the change which she described, or rather suggested. ‘You will know how to stay another time.’

  ‘Go with Hatton,’ said Nevill, in an acquiescent tone.

  ‘We should have had to go soon because of our dinner,’ said Honor, in a confident manner from Fulbert’s knee.

  ‘Don’t you want to go, my boy?’ said Eleanor to Gavin.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Well, run away then.’

  Gavin looked at her and sank into tears.

  ‘Honor, is Gavin quite well?’

  ‘Yes, I think so, Mother.’

  ‘Then what is the matter with him?’

  Honor met her mother’s eyes.

  Daniel and Graham picked up Honor and carried her round the room. She put her arms round their necks and laughed and shouted in reaction. Eleanor looked on with an indulgent smile, and Gavin with an expectant one. Nevill beat his hands on his sides and moved from foot to foot; and when his brothers took Gavin in Honor’s stead, broke into wails and maintained them until they came to himself, when he repulsed them and stood abandoned to his sense that nothing could wipe out what had taken place. When Eleanor and Luce had expostulated in vain, and Regan explained with some success, he raised his arms and allowed himself to be lifted, leaning back in his brother’s arms with an air of convalescence. They tightened their hold and quickened their pace, and he held to their shoulders and accepted this compensation for what he had borne, while Honor watched with bright eyes, and Gavin with a smile of gentle interest.

  ‘Give Gavin one little turn, and then that is enough,’ said Eleanor.

  Nevill stood with his arm on Regan’s knee, and his eyes on his brothers with a watchful expression. Hatton arrived in response to the sounds that had reached her ears.

  ‘Say “Thank you”, Gavin dear. You heard Honor say it,’ said Eleanor.

  Gavin did so.

  ‘And look at Daniel and Graham while you speak.’

  Gavin turned his eyes on his brothers, content with fulfilling his obligations separately.

  ‘It was him that ran,’ said Nevill, with a sigh.

  ‘I suppose it is still the journey, Hatton,’ said Eleanor, with another.

  ‘It was best to cry it out, madam, whatever it was.’

  ‘He cried it out,’ said Nevill, in information to Hatton.

  ‘Come and give me a kiss, and then run away,’ said Eleanor.

  Nevill went to her with a trotting step, took Hatton’s hand and proceeded in this way towards the door.

  ‘So you are a horse again. Daniel and Graham have been your horses, haven’t they?’

  ‘Pony, little pony,’ said Nevill, seeming oblivious of his brothers.

  ‘Isn’t the little pony going to trot to say good-bye to Father?’

  ‘Only to Grandma,’ said Nevill, and trotted past Regan and then through the door.

  Honor and Gavin kissed their parents and frolicked from the room, their voices sounding high and continuous until they reached the upper floor.

  Regan had witnessed the scene with interest, and Sir Jesse without attention. The latter seldom noticed children, rather because it did not occur to him to do so, than because he disapproved of the practice.

  ‘Their new governess is coming tomorrow,’ said Luce. ‘I do trust she will be a success.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Miss – Miss who teaches the others, teach them?’ said Sir Jesse.

  ‘Grandpa, you must know Miss Mitford’s name after all these years,’ said Luce. ‘I expect she knows yours.’

  ‘Why, so do I, my dear. And in that case she does the better, as you say.’

  ‘I don’t know who would dare to make the suggestion,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Why, is there any risk?’ said Sir Jesse. ‘If so, I beg no one will take it. But isn’t teaching her business? What she does – what she chooses to do, I should say?’

  ‘I doubt if there is so much choice about it,’ said Regan.

  ‘In so far as there is, she exercises it,’ said Eleanor. ‘Her pupils must be in a certain stage. James had to go to school, because she found him too young.’

  ‘I daresay the girls give her less trouble,’ said Sir Jesse. ‘If she has the right to choose, let her use it. But wouldn’t one woman for the lot cost less?’

  ‘We should have to increase her salary by as much as we are to give the other,’ said Regan.

  ‘So the other has not much choice,’ said her husband, with amusement and no other feeling. ‘Have as many as you like, if it is all for the same expense. I would rather be in a place where I got it all. But as you say, or as Miss Mitford says.’

  ‘Grandma does not shrink from exposing the whole of her mind,’ said Graham. ‘That is a very rare thing.’

  Regan smiled at her grandson before she resumed the subject.

  ‘Miss Mitford would never take a hint,’ she said.

  ‘I hardly like to do so myself,’ said Daniel.

  ‘She is quite right,’ said Luce. ‘If we are ashamed of what we ask, there is no reason to help us. And it would be more strain to teach three extra children.’

  ‘I don’t think Miss Mitford suffers much in that way,’ said Regan. ‘She takes great care of herself.’

  ‘There is nothing wrong in that, Grandma.’

  ‘We do find the habit unengaging,’ said Fulbert. ‘But in Miss Mitford
’s place I should recommend it.’

  Regan gave her son a look of admiration for his freedom from her own failings.

  ‘Isn’t the little fellow too young to learn?’ said Daniel.

  ‘Why can’t you call your brother by his name?’ said Eleanor. ‘He would not forget yours.’

  ‘We have not had him long enough to get used to him.’

  ‘It is not good for him to be actually kept young,’ said Luce.

  ‘He seems all in favour of it,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Gavin has the most in him of the three,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘You mean you think so, my dear, or perhaps that you hope so,’ said Fulbert. ‘And he has his own ways, I admit. Or rather he has not any ways, unless that constitutes one. But I put my Honor down as the highest type.’

  ‘Girls are more forward than boys. Gavin has more to come.’

  ‘I am only talking of what is there. I find that the most good to me.’

  ‘You are a partial parent, Mother,’ said Luce. ‘It is a good thing Hatton is free from the failing, a serious one with children.’

  ‘It was I who chose Hatton.’

  ‘Fortune favoured you, my dear,’ said Fulbert.

  ‘My own sense and judgement did so.’

  ‘Well, we cannot find a ground for disputing it.’

  ‘You sound as if you would like to do so.’

  ‘Well, I hardly support you, my dear.’

  ‘Isn’t that one of them crying?’ said Regan.

  ‘It is only Nevill,’ said Luce. ‘It does not mean much with him. And we can rely on Hatton’s ever-listening ear.’

  ‘If you begin on Hatton again, do not rely on mine,’ said her mother.

  Fulbert and his father laughed, and Eleanor looked rather gratified. She was unusually sensitive to approval or appreciation. The schoolroom children entered the room, in accordance with the custom that allowed or required their presence at dessert. They came to established places at the table. Only the nursery children were expected to stand, and they would presumably continue to do so, as there was no further provision of seats.

  ‘Who came in last?’ said Eleanor, almost at once.

  ‘James,’ said Daniel. ‘He has reached that stage.’